Jurisdiction 101: Connecticut Supreme Court Hands Down Win For Taxpayers

In a victory for taxpayers across the nutmeg state, the Connecticut Supreme Court recently held in 7 Germantown Rd., LLC v. City of Danbury, No. 21024, 2025 WL 309848 (Conn. Jan. 28, 2025) (“Germantown”) that the appraisal filing requirement pursuant to C.G.S. § 12-117a does not implicate the trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction over property tax appeals nor divest a taxpayer’s legal standing to commence and prosecute an appeal brought under that statute.

C.G.S. § 12-117a instructs that a plaintiff commencing a property tax appeal for real property assessed at one million dollars or more “shall file with the court, not later than one hundred twenty days after [commencing the court case] an appraisal of the real property.” Further, “[i]f such appraisal is not timely filed [within the 120 days], the court may dismiss the application.” The statute gives the trial court discretion to extend the 120-day deadline for good cause shown.

In Germantown, the plaintiffs produced their appraisal reports to the City of Danbury and filed an expert disclosure with the trial court—but failed to file the reports with the court as the law requires.

Danbury moved to dismiss each appeal arguing that failure to file the reports with the trial court stripped the court of its subject matter jurisdiction. The trial court initially agreed. Later, however, after the plaintiffs filed their appraisals with the court and moved to have the cases reopened, the trial court reversed its ruling. The City appealed to the Supreme Court.

On appeal, the City advanced the following two primary arguments[1]:

• Under C.G.S. § 12-117a (a) (2) the plaintiffs’ failure to timely file their appraisals with the trial court:

1. Deprived the plaintiffs of their original standing—legal authority—to commence and prosecute their cases; and
2. Divested the trial court of its subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate the cases.

If the Supreme Court agreed with the City on either, the trial court would have been required to dismiss the tax appeals.

Addressing standing first, the Germantown Court noted that although C.G.S. § 12-117a (a) (2) unambiguously created a taxpayer obligation to file an appraisal report with the trial court, that subsection “says nothing about who is a proper party to bring a tax appeal to the Superior Court in the first instance.” The Germantown Court further noted that a taxpayer’s standing to commence a tax appeal is covered by C.G.S. § 12-117a (a) (1). It reasoned, therefore, that the legislature did not intend for the appraisal requirement to implicate a taxpayer’s standing and rejected the City’s first argument holding that a taxpayer’s failure to timely file its appraisal report with the Court does not deprive it of its standing to bring its tax appeal in the first instance.

Turning to the City’s second argument, the Germantown Court noted that subject matter jurisdiction is not discretional; not even the courts can waive it. Thus, to determine whether the failure to timely file an appraisal with the trial court divested that court of subject matter jurisdiction, the Germantown Court examined whether the statute requires a trial court to dismiss a case due to an untimely filing.

Focusing on the statutory mandate that plaintiffs “shall” file an appraisal within 120 days, while permitting that the trial court “may” dismiss a tax appeal for failure to timely file the appraisal, the Germantown Court noted that when a statute uses both “shall” and “may,” it suggests an intent to apply the terms differently—“shall” as mandatory and “may” as discretionary.

Accordingly, the Germantown Court concluded that while the statute requires a taxpayer to file an appraisal with the Superior Court, it does not require the Superior Court to dismiss the case due to a late filing. Therefore, the Germantown Court held that the taxpayer’s obligation to file an appraisal with the Superior Court within 120 days of commencing its court case is not:

1. A condition precedent for the taxpayer to bring a tax appeal; nor
2. A constraint on the trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction over the tax appeal.

Ultimately, the Germantown decision can be seen as a victory for taxpayers; it reinforces the discretion the legislature placed with the Superior Court to extend the 120-day deadline and to decide the fate of a tax appeal where that deadline is not met by the taxpayer. It also, however, serves as a reminder to taxpayer plaintiffs to strictly adhere to the requirements of the statute and proactively seek extensions of the appraisal filing deadline where needed.

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[1] The Germantown Court also addressed whether a recent amendment to C.G.S. § 12-117a that allowed certain taxpayers (including the plaintiffs) whose tax appeals had been dismissed, under the same or similar factual scenario of these matters, to revive those dismissed cases rendered this appeal moot. The Supreme Court mootness was not implicated here and proceeded to address the main issue concerning the trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction and the plaintiffs’ standing.